VOL. XLVI
No 23
The Political Scene (9 June 2003)
Having survived a perilous infancy – the neoconservatives in Washington tried to strangle it at birth – the international road map to Israeli-Palestinian peace has returned to center stage with the Sharm al-Shaikh and 'Aqaba summits – and has been given unexpectedly strong backing by President Bush himself. In Iraq the interim authority is now to be an advisory council picked by the coalition.
Sharm al-Shaikh And 'Aqaba Summits Launch Road Map
The Arab participants in the summit with President Bush at Sharm al-Shaikh on 3 June – Egyptian President Husni Mubarak, King 'Abd Allah of Jordan, Saudi Crown Prince 'Abd Allah ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz, King Hamad of Bahrain and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud 'Abbas – reportedly balked at an American demand to speed up the normalization of their relations with Israel. But they did endorse the road map unveiled by the international Quartet – the US, UN, EU and Russia – at the end of April, setting the stage for the US-Israeli-Palestinian summit in 'Aqaba the next day. According to the Arabs’ final statement at Sharm, “President Bush gave impetus to the peace process by his vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living in peace and security. This vision means that, alongside the existing state of Israel, a new state for the Palestinians will emerge. We welcome the road map arising from this vision, and adopted by the Quartet, especially since it has been accepted by both the Israeli and Palestinian governments. We particularly express our appreciation for President Bush’s strong personal commitment to its full implementation.” And the next day at 'Aqaba, Mr 'Abbas emphasized that the Palestinians have accepted the road map “without any reservations,” adding that “we repeat our renunciation, a renunciation of terror against Israelis wherever they may be…We will exert all our efforts, using all our resources to end the militarization of the intifada and we will succeed. The armed intifada must end, and we must use and resort to peaceful means in our quest to end the occupation and the suffering of Palestinians and Israelis.” Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, for his part, had clearly decided that 'Aqaba was neither the place nor the time to take issue with the roadmap, saying only that the Israeli government welcomed the opportunity to renew direct negotiations “according to the steps of the road map as adopted by the Israeli government.” (Whether that is quite the same thing as accepting the road map plain and simple is not entirely clear. Last week Mr Sharon attached 14 conditions to his acceptance.) To give Mr Sharon the benefit of the doubt, he may actually have meant it when he said that “it is in Israel’s interest not to govern the Palestinians, but for the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state.” But it is hard not to believe that he had the Americans in mind when he declared that “we can also reassure our Palestinian partners that we understand the importance of territorial contiguity in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state. Israeli policy in the territories that are subject to direct negotiations with the Palestinians will reflect that fact. We accept the principle that no unilateral actions by any party can prejudge the outcome of our negotiations.” In any case, the impact of these relatively conciliatory remarks was considerably diluted by a statement qualifying them issued by Mr Sharon’s office shortly before the summit began. This said that “Sharon’s statement in 'Aqaba will address the possibility of the establishment of a Palestinian state with temporary borders, if conditions permit. The prime minister’s office states that the Palestinian state will be, among other things, completely demilitarized, and this nation will be the home of the Palestinian diaspora and Palestinian refugees will not be allowed into Israeli territory.”
Bush Commits
The problem with the road map is that Mr 'Abbas has the will but not necessarily the ability to proceed with his half of the bargain, while Mr Sharon has the ability but not necessarily the will to carry out his half – and he is also a very old hand indeed at obstructing initiatives he does not fancy. If the two sides are left to their own devices, therefore, the outlook is anything but promising, and it is clearly going to require vigorous American intervention to keep the process from stagnating. And while the Palestinian and Israeli responses have been more or less as expected, the surprise of the last week has been the degree to which President George Bush – whose attitude to the Arab-Israeli conflict when he assumed office was strictly hands off – has been willing to commit the US, at least verbally, to the even-handed implementation of the road map and the creation of a real Palestinian state. Mr Bush said on 29 May that “I am absolutely determined to carry on to the bitter end because US foreign policy is not limited to defending its own interests. We want peace. This region will only have peace if it has freedom. For the Palestinians this means the creation of a state. A Palestinian state must be viable. The expansion of settlements is a contradiction to our efforts to create a Palestinian state.” At the Sharm al-Shaikh summit he affirmed that “the Holy Land must be shared between the state of Palestine and the state of Israel,” as well as emphasizing that “Israel has got responsibilities. Israel must deal with the settlements. Israel must make sure there is a continuous territory that the Palestinians can call home…I’m the kind of person who, when I say something, I mean it. I mean that the world needs to have a Palestinian state that is free and at peace, and therefore my government will work with all parties concerned to achieve this vision.” And at 'Aqaba he announced that “all sides have made important commitments, and the US will strive to see these commitments fulfilled…We’ll place a mission on the ground, led by Ambassador John Wolf. This mission will be charged with helping the parties move towards peace, monitoring their progress and stating clearly who was fulfilling their responsibilities. And we expect both parties to keep their promises. I’ve also asked Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make this a matter of the highest priority. Secretary Powell and Dr Rice, as my personal representative, will work closely with the parties, helping them move toward true peace as quickly as possible.” Clearly Mr Bush has put his full weight behind – if not staked his credibility on - the implementation of the road map, and it will be interesting to see how far he is prepared to go to meet this commitment.
Iraqi Elections Recede
The coalition authorities running Iraq (now known formally as the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA) have already abandoned the idea of an provisional Iraqi government until elections can be held in favor of an ”interim administration” whose main job would be to draw up a constitution, and have postponed the national conference to select this interim body from sometime in May until mid-July. Now they appear to have dropped the idea of a conference altogether. According to a report in the Washington Post on 2 June (which nobody has bothered to deny), the CPA now plans to select a 25 to 30 member advisory council as a transitional authority whose function, according to a senior CPA official cited by AFP, will be to “advise the authority on the whole range of policy issues, economic as well as political, and name key advisors to Iraq’s ministries who will work in close coordination with the coalition’s own overseers.” The senior American official in the country, Paul Bremer, tried to pass this off as nothing out of the ordinary, saying on 2 June that “there will be no provisional government. There never was an intention to have a provisional government. The UN resolution is quite clear. It’s an Iraqi interim administration.” But – unsurprisingly – that was not how the Iraqis saw it, particularly the spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress (INC), which is part of the seven-member leadership council that was the leading contender to form the provisional government. Intifad Qanbar said on 2 June that “we have a lot of disagreements with how this council is being established. We think that Iraqi sovereignty is important. The CPA will not achieve what the Iraqi people want, and it will not be able to solve problems.” And the senior British official in Iraq, John Sawers, confirmed that Mr Qanbar’s suspicions were justified when he told the London Times on 3 June that in effect the Iraqis are not ready for democracy. According to Mr Sawers, to hold elections now would play into the hands of radical or ethnic groups without wide support, since “the political parties are not established on a national basis; there is no established media yet where ideas can be debated. If you have an open political process where the political parties and media are undeveloped, and the radicals detect that, you are vulnerable to exposing the moderates to pressures they are not able to deal with.” That is perilously close to saying that elections should be postponed because the coalition does not like the probable results, and while Mr Sawers is in all likelihood right, it is hard to see how his candid comments square with the G8 declaration on the same day that “our shared objective is a fully sovereign, stable and democratic Iraq, at peace with its neighbors and firmly on the road to progress.” Indeed, as the prospect of early elections recedes ever further into the distance, it looks as if the coalition is settling in for a long stay, and the longer the liberation, the more it looks like occupation and the greater the chance that it will end in tears. Perhaps what should really be worrying the Americans, though, is that in Iraq they cannot simply declare a victory and withdraw, as they did when Lebanon went sour on them in 1983. They must leave behind something to replace the Iraqi state they have just finished dismantling, or there will be chaos as others seek to fill the vacuum they have created in the heart of the region.
Charles Snow